Last night my daughter and I were at Woodfield Mall shopping for eye glasses when a severe storm suddenly swept through Chicago. Just when we finished our eye exams, a mall security agent came into the store ordering everyone to evacuate and seek shelter in the lower level of the building. The mall was pretty crowded, but luckily everyone remained calm while we were being ushered into the mall's emergency hallways.
One woman came marching in with her clan looking furious! She started complaining out loud about how mall security was handling the situation, saying that they didn't act fast enough and they shouldn't be asking people to sign in their names at the hallway entrance in a time like this. Her little girl started crying, holding on to her begging for comfort, but she went on and on and wouldn't shut up. Finally I decided to shut her up in my calmest tone of voice saying, "There is no need to worry mam! They're saying the storm is headed this way, but it's still plenty far enough, so there is no need for alarm or panic. She yelled at me: "Well, I used to manage a large movie theater and this is not the way we did it. This is not the way to handle an evacuation!"
I thought oh whatever....and looked away. A few seconds later she moved away from me to a different spot.
People looked tense and worried and many were using their cell phones trying to get weather updates from friends and family. They shared all kinds of mixed reports with us and the crowd grew restless. There were at least five different claims of tornados touching in several different towns close by, but newspapers today reported that no such thing happened, funnel forming yes, but only in one of the suburbs south of us. The narrow hallway was about 100 feet long and 4 feet wide. It was packed with people lined up against both walls, staring at each other while exchanging nervous smiles when eyes met.
I just stood there quietly listening, assessing the situation while I was trying to comfort Nat. Nat was worried about Oreo who was all alone at home and terrified of thunder.
All in all we were cooped up in that hot and muggy hallway for about 45 minutes before they finally announced the all clear.
Nat and I went home immediately afterwards to check on Oreo. Poor thing was so scared, she peed all over her cage.
More than 200,000 Commonwealth Edison customers lost power across northern Illinois in the aftermath of the storms, with about 49,000 of them in Chicago, according to Pam Anton, a utility spokeswoman. Lansing, Aurora and Lombard also had thousands of customers reporting a loss of power.